Fourth of Four, Mistress of Change, Volatile on a Molecular Level, and many, many more.  My lineage is unknown and though I am curious about many things, I think it is wisest not to inquire too far into that.  I was there at the crotch of time and before, shaping the destiny of Ash and his friends, ever since I first met him.  I was the shopkeeper who sold him the pokemon costumes he used to walk into the forest undetected.  I was the Nurse Joy who conveniently didn’t notice what they were doing in their rooms.  Yes, I have been a few of the girls Brock was after, I am the Mistress of Change after all, you can’t expect my abilities to be trumped by Brock’s uncanny sight.  Who do you think has provided Team Rocket with their disguises when they needed them?  My hand is as subtle and unseen as Saliaven’s.  Look for the man in the beggar’s clothes, recognize a woman that nobody knows, I am the rainmaker.  I may not have Mewtwo’s supernatural ability to scry, but I have my ways.  That’s why he came to me in the first place.
     I remember the first time I saw him.  I was working at my synthesizer, trying to find a material that resembled human skin more than what I was using at the time when a voice in my head said ‘Your polymerization is faulty, you’re trying to use substitution to replicate condensation, it doesn’t work that way.’  I looked up to give whoever it was a piece of my mind on the subject of organic chemistry, and realized who I was talking to.  You don’t think I wasn’t there when he first appeared to Ash?  I was, now guess who.  Mewtwo had certainly mellowed since I’d last met him, and he was surprised I remembered him.  I pointed out that to erase my mind, he’d have to have been aware it was there at the time.  I think it was then that he realized that I was more skillful than I looked.
     He offered me a very good deal, my skills and his to be combined to study the interaction and intricacies of both the human and pokemon world.  When he used the word ‘fusion’ I didn’t realize exactly how literal he meant to be about that, and the first shot of magic that put us together scared the heck out of me.  Mewtwo had told me what it would be like, but words are insufficient to describe that sort of thing.  In a nutshell, it was both ecstacy and torment.  Imagine having your entire body taken apart, scrambled, unscrambled, added to other parts, scrambled again and then reassembled in a rather haphazard manner.  It got easier with repeated attempts, but I continued to feel weird having two minds in one body.  With his powers and mine in one package, we could go anywhere undetected and be anyone, studying the behavior of all creatures.
     When Ash first started using pokemon costumes to sneak into the forest, Mewtwo was not with me, because he had to join his peers in a meeting of the GF, so I was somewhat restricted in what I could do.  As I said, I was everywhere, making sure that Ash did exactly as he was supposed to, and gently pushing him to be more like me.  I also felt that getting those two together would be a nice thing, so I slipped a little something into the nose of the pidgeot costume.  Ash and Misty did almost exactly what I thought they would do, but Brock went further than my data would have suggested.  That just shows that you can’t really know a person.  My motivation to go to such trouble was that when I joined with Mewtwo, I gained some of his proficiency in low mana spellcasting, and I had looked into Ash’s future.  I couldn’t allow Ash to cross into Hoenn, so I took drastic measures.  I bound him to the twin regions by making sure he had a trainer’s bond with the guardians of it.  His Chosen One destiny picker gives him powers he still hasn’t realized.  I think that he and Misty are the only one’s who don’t research their past and powers.  Anyway, Ash and Brock almost missed the clearing, so I had to lure them towards it.  No one mentioned it because it seemed like such a minor detail, but there was a ninetails Ash went for, who very conveniently ran towards that clearing, counter to the order given to all pokemon there.  Of course, there is the chance that particular ninetails wasn’t a pokemon.
     I was certainly not expecting them to come directly to me so soon after, and for a moment I thought that they had caught on to my interference.  When I found out what they really wanted, I was ecstatic, the good fortune I had that those two would come to my very doorstep asking for help in something I’ve wanted them to try for years.  Watching them switch places was something of a fantasy of mine, and their behavior was almost exactly as I expected.  Ash was surprised and curious, Misty was resigned and anxious.  I also slipped a little something into Ash’s mask, a pheremone that made him attracted to Brock for a short time.  Another experiment which proved a very entertaining thing to do.  OK, OK, I was being naughty there, but all this was as rewarding an experience as I could have hoped.  Do not begrudge me my little tricks on people, and do not think that I am mean for it’s own sake.  No one judges the sense of humor of a Gengar, after all.  I did no harm in the end, and by the time Ash had reached Viridian, he had bigger problems anyway.
     I guess I should note right now that during my time watching Ash, both before and after Saliaven started interfering, I have been many people.  That includes all the members of Ash’s traveling group and the trio of Team Rocketeers who follow him.  I was able to be Pikachu and Meowth while I was with Mewtwo, but I had to stop being Pikachu, Misty and Ash when they got their psychokinesis.  I would have liked to study interactions between couples with psychic abilities, but I couldn’t risk one of them learning the subtleties of mind reading without being detected.  I could mimic their thought patterns, yes, but not if they could go in and out too easily.  I was especially afraid Misty would be able to do that.  The way I did it before was to find one alone and use either Mewtwo or ditto’s psychic binding powers to hold them while I took their place, and then give them the memories of the intervening time as if they had gone back that moment.  It’s not as hard as it looks, although when they got their psychic abilities, they became resistant, another reason not to try.  The feeling of being someone or something else is liberating, though.  The knowledge that what you do will have no consequence on your reputation gives you the freedom to do anything you want.
     For most of Ash’s journey after I helped them get even with Brock, I kept out of the way.  I watched from time to time, and I interceded when I thought it was absolutely necessary, but I did as little as possible.  Except when he deliberately asked for it, that is.  Walking into my gym is a challenge that few are willing to take, and even fewer manage to pass.  Since the others don’t want to describe my methods, I will myself.  They fail to mention that my gym is an airship, and so is never in one place for very long, another symbol of my way of battling.  I make them battle their greatest mental blocks to excellence, their fears, their loves, themselves.  I hold a mirror to their minds, showing them their obstacles, and forcing them to destroy those images and those weaknesses.  Ash was forced to fight first Gary, then Misty, then himself.  Through the use of the ditto army I’ve been raising, eighteen pokemon weren’t that difficult.  Misty had her own problems, although they were similar to Ash’s, since she fought her sisters, Ash, then herself.  Both of them passed, although Ash almost refused to fight the image of Misty that was of course me.  He should be glad I didn’t do worse.  Misty took one look around and used her sense.  For once, she had been warned in advance I was about, and so she was totally fearless when she walked in, knowing that whatever she saw there would be completely unreal.  It was that same steel will which got her through the images thrown up by the Dark Citadel.  I watched that too, and I must say that I could have done a better job of disturbing people.  It was amusing that Ash once again almost lost it trying to fight shadow Misty.  Some people just can’t be improved.
     Of late, my magic has been drawn towards my life’s calling, transformations.  The fusion with Ditto gave me a great understanding of how to change my form at will to anything I wish, and the magic I am learning will allow me to reach out and do the same to anything I encounter.  Watch out Ash, I’m coming for you again.  It was in this city that my last name was supposedly revealed, Waterflower.  Me?  Misty’s little sister?  It’s laughable, and I saw the look in Saliaven’s eye when he said it, the same look I get when I’m messing with people’s minds.  I find myself drawn to him as well, and to Marlene.  Between the two, I think I prefer her over him.  Marlene has style, and power to match, she is also a spontaneous changeling, something I can understand.    And yet . . .  I see the power she wields, and I wonder if I would be like her if I had such natural abilities.  Saliaven must have a reason for not wanting her to interfere, and yet it is obvious he has done so much damage, even though he didn’t want to.  Is he covering up for something she did that is so colossal in scope that he can’t speak it out loud?  What could she have done that was so awful?  Neither of them speaks about just how much they can do.  Did she destroy a planet, a universe?  They are extradimensional, so it is possible that she destroyed, or killed or even hurt a person more powerful than they.  Saliaven once hinted that is was her nature that made her dangerous.  Maybe she wasn’t supposed to get free, and he doesn’t have the power or will to send her back into confinement.  She seems like someone who could never be held, and that is something I am sure about.  I have now taken the surname Chronotis, if only to make it easier on people who inquire.  Out of all the powers they possess, Saliaven and Marlene seem to dislike change.  Why, I don’t know.  Marlene does it by accident, and Saliaven at absolute need.  There is a gap in their change, and I fit nicely.  Saliaven’s morals and freedom to laugh, Marlene’s love of chaos.  I am the balance.
     I guess that the question that bothers me most is who I am.  I have been so many things, but my true nature never becomes any clearer.  I work to help others rid themselves of their inner conflicts, but I cannot get rid of my own.  I never knew my parents.   Perhaps my family was part of an ancient house that helped the others rule the Magi.  Perhaps my family is nothing.  There are few people who could tell me, and none seem very willing.  Until I have the humility to ask, I shall research and maybe one day find a clue.
Author’s note: Duplica’s been my favorite character ever since I first saw her first episode.  I’ve been trying to fit her in as a major character, and this is my way of saying I have.  Saliaven shapes destiny on a grand scale, but Duplica likes to get hands on with her chosen subjects.  She’s always cheerful on the outside, but her actions speak of a more mischievous person on the inside.  I just gave that side of her a little boost.  She’s on the side of good, but very chaotic, and she still gives off that air of cheerfulness when she interacts with the others as herself, but how often is that compared with when she is interacting as someone else?